The distinction between the condemnation of homosexual behavior versus homosexuality is what Jones said is the critical nuance about the Community Covenant.
- Stanton L. Jones is Provost of Wheaton College
Now comes Wheaton College announcing it has "evolved" in its views on sexuality and has come to see the distinction between "homosexual practice" and "homosexuality." You know, that ever-so-popular "critical nuance" distinction between getting it on and getting your flame on. Stanton Jones has been studying sexuality for "thirty years" and he's learned the Apostle Paul was wrong to condemn the effeminate and what's really needed is a cell group on campus where they can be affirmed in their effeminacy. Who cares what the Apostle Paul says?
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. - 1Corinthians 6:9, 10
What on earth was the Apostle Paul thinking to speak this way? Had he never heard of being gay? Was he so callous as to exacerbate the deep angst and alienation experienced by those different from himself?
Who knows.
Meanwhile, Phil Ryken and his fellow academics are posturing themselves halfway between the homophobes and the homosexualists. Which is to say Phil has arrived in Wheaton. And of course the announcement that Wheaton would now provide an officially funded student group that advocates for homosexuals is released with the thinly-veiled threat that anyone who dares to expose Wheaton's denial of God's holiness and the sinfulness of man will be labelled a promoter of homosexual suicide. Read what they say.
The worst thing here is that Wheaton's best and brightest demonstrate utter cluelessness concerning ministry to people tempted by sodomy. To think the Christian shepherd is protecting the souls of his sheep by allowing them to hold on to their effeminacy while requiring them not to act on it is to give these fellow sinners over to the principalities and powers.
On the other hand, Wheaton has long been a union-shop of feminism meaning Wheaton has long denied the Creation Order of Adam first, then Eve, and the laws God gave us concerning the meaning of sexuality in matters of responsibility, authority, and submission. Did anyone really think having rebelled against God's Creation Order concerning sexuality's meaning and purpose outside of intercourse, Wheaton would be able to hold the line on the meaning and purpose of sexuality concerning physical identity and intimacy?
So we're now left with Wheaton in this curious limbo of two-thirds of sexuality left behind—authority and submission, and sexual identity (effeminacy). Can anyone seriously think those who give up Adam's federal headship and cave in on effeminacy will hold the line on the proper fitting together of body parts?
Wheaton has been educated into a stupidity that the uneducated will howl over. Every teenage boy knows what effeminacy is and that it's bad, but Wheaton has seen otherwise.
Androgyny is perfectly fine; just keep those bodies from touching!
If one were to want a point halfway between faith and unbelief in the critical battle of our time, one would not be able to come up with a better place to stand than Phil Ryken and Stanton Jones just adopted. Fifteen years ago I told my wife that, having turned their backs on father-rule, Evangelicals would next move to the approval of sodomy by means of a halfway point of promoting the idea that homosexual identity is morally neutral while trying not to give in totally by saying homosexual copulation is fine.
Anyone who knows and loves people tempted by homosexuality and effeminacy sees through this in a heartbeat. Wheaton's newfound position is an open book to those who really love gays.
So I call on President Ryken and Provost Jones to reverse their position and change the nature of their LGBT group. Announce to everyone that it is now going to be a group designated to help those in bondage to homosexuality and effeminacy to repent and escape this bondage.
Unless Wheaton denies anyone needs to repent of effeminacy.
Simple, isn't it? So very simple.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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